DLA Tackles Partner Credit for Sharing Work as It Sheds Verein

DLA Piper’s decision to ditch its Swiss verein structure solves a nagging issue about how partners at the global law firm are compensated for sending work to colleagues elsewhere.

DLA’s operation as a verein, separated into affiliated US and international branches, for nearly 20 years helped fuel the firm’s massive growth. But the setup also prevents partners in one branch—US or international—from getting full credit when they refer clients to lawyers in the other branch, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

The firm is boosting credit for partners who refer work as part of its plan to drop the verein, announced March 12. The change highlights the challenges posed by the once buzzy verein strategy, in which separate profit pools threaten to drag partner compensation and hinder firms’ brands in hotly competitive legal services markets.

“Vereins are a bit of a cheat,” said Scott Gibson, director of UK legal recruitment consultancy Edwards Gibson. “They were a mechanism by which law firms could grow quite quickly—internationally particularly,” he said.

The model was popularized in the mid-2010s when a wave of law firms sought to expand without the financial headaches created by operating a single partnership across geographic markets. And grow they did: Four of the five large law firms operating as vereins brought in more than $2 billion in 2024, placing them among the industry’s top revenue generators.

But the firms’ partner profits lagged behind competitors, averaging $2 million among the five law firms in an industry where top partner profits reached $9 million apiece last year. Other vereins, including Norton Rose Fulbright and Baker McKenzie, have also overhauled their structures in recent years to try to boost profits while retaining the affiliate-based model.

“We are convinced that this strategic alignment, the leadership alignment, will absolutely further enhance the perception of the institution from a talent perspective,” Frank Ryan, the New York lawyer who will serve as the firm’s chair, said in an interview last week.

Giving Credit

DLA is keeping its separate partner pools in its shift away from the verein, with a global holding company overseeing the US and international partnerships. But the firm plans to directly credit partners who send work between the two entities.

The change will benefit high-performing partners in the US and international groups, one source familiar with the situation said. It comes as top law firms face pressure to consider a slew of moves aimed at freeing up profits to attract and retain key partners.

Another source said DLA provided US partners with a “kickback” of origination credit for matters sent to overseas offices, but it was so minimal that it didn’t always work to promote sharing. With the verein structure ditched, the source said the firm may look to cut ties with offices in far flung places that didn’t generate profits.

DLA had already been making some changes to shore up partner profits. The firm had begun de-equitizing partners in regional offices and in other markets to trim themselves down and boost profitability, Gibson said. US partner profits jumped to more than $5 million in 2025, according to figures reported by the American Lawyer.

Baker McKenzie, which was the first law firm to adopt the Swiss verein structure, has profit pools spread across North America; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia. The firm voted in early 2025 to overhaul its model, aiming to create fewer profit pools to push partner profits closer to its rivals. The firm did not respond to a request for comment about its plan, dubbed “Project Orion.”

Norton Rose Fulbright in March 2023 changed its rules to allow US partners to get credit for cross border work they helped originate before referring to colleagues in other areas.

“It’s really a single firm kind of thought and it’s not like we’re sharing profits or anything like that, because we’re not, but we are telling our partners and we’re paying them as though all of that’s one big pot,” said Jeff Cody.

The move has helped the firm keep top partners and make its case to the market, Cody said.

“That was one of the bigger barriers is you meet with a lateral partner and they’d want to know, ‘Well, okay, if I send $10 million of work over into another region, what does that mean for me and compensation,” Cody said. “We just took that off the table and said, ‘we’re just going to pay you for it, just like it was a US dollar,’” he said.

‘A Bad Name’

More than a decade on, the verein structure hasn’t expanded beyond a handful of firms that have massive rosters spread across the globe.

“Vereins have gotten a bad name,” said law firm consultant Peter Zeughauser. “When you talk to laterals they say ‘I don’t want to be part of a verein.’ When you talk to merger partners, you hear them say ‘I don’t want to be part of a verein.’ It’s a hurdle to get over.”

DLA Piper’s decision puts the pressure on the remaining four verein firms to determine if their structure is the right one in a changing competitive landscape.

The firm’s leaders, Charles Severs and Frank Ryan, said driving profitability in the US and international partnerships was part of the motivation for the change. They also acknowledged that the move may serve as a brand refresh.

“Our skill sets are incredibly high around the world,” Ryan said. “I just don’t think the perception was where reality was. That’s changing rapidly.”